12 on the rebound and contrary to regula- tions, and is contemplating a secret mar- riage when his treachery is exposed by a technical sergeant in the Army Engi- neers who saw the entire incident from a bridge he was building and who is wildly in love with the Wave's ex-roommate, a Vassar girl about to join the Waacs and marry him besides, the Army being broad-minded about such matters. Just how this story will end we leave to older hands at the game than ourself. The important thing is to see that the picture is made and get it over with. Presentation W E were on hand last Friday after- noon at the arrival in town, by way of LaGuardia Field, of Corporal Barney Ross of the Marines, the former light- and welterweight champion who is credited with having expended twen- ty-two Japanese on Guadalcanal. The rallying point was a big, bare room at the Red Cross 'Var Fund headquarters on West Forty-second Street, the Red Cross having got first dibs on Ross on ac- count of its current drive. Along with every other journalist in the metropoli- tan area, we got there ahead of the Cor- poral, whose plane was late, and well before he arrived the press had begun to tap its feet. "I heard the pho- tographers were going to get him first," a sportswriter said to a Red Cross offi- cial. "Will you see if you can fix that somehow?" "I'll try," said the Red Cross official. "Will you see that we get him before the reporters for a couple of minutes?" said a photographer to the same official a little later. "Sure," said the official. Meanwhile, a pair of pho- togenic Red Cross nurses sat waiting on a pair of chairs in a corner, their afternoon ohviously all planned for them. It was the photographers who won out when Ross, escorted by a Marine captain, finally showed up. As he was backed against a wall with the photo- genic nurses, we noticed that his hair was grayer than we remembered it and that he carried a cane, but he looked healthily tanned withal. "Now you girls kiss him on both cheeks," said a photog- rapher. "Oh, no," said an older nurse who was standing by, apparently in a supervisory capacity, "not in the Red Cross." "O.K., then you just put your arms around them, Barney," said an- other photographer . "My goodness," said the older nurse as Ross complied, ('1 wish Mr. Bramway was here." Still another photographer pushed his way through the crowd, hauling along a mild-looking man in a gray suit. "Say, here's the guy that's going to present him with the thing," he said to his col- leagues. The guy turned out to be Mr. Colby Chester, currently chairman of the Red Cross War Fund of N ew York City, and the thing a citation which the Red Cross was giving Ross for bravery above and beyond the call of duty. The Messrs. Chester and Ross were duly snapped shaking hands. After that the reporters had their inning in a mass interview , which Ross submitted to genially while the Marine captain looked on. Ross said his wounds Gn Guadalcanal were trifling and that he was carrying the cane because of ar- thritis. Questions were still coming like machine-gun bullets when the captain, alert to the requirements of Ross's time- table, interposed, "We'll miss Para- mount if we don't get going." We noticed that lights and a movie camera had been set up at the other end of the room and that a number of men were fidgeting anxiously on the outskirts of the press. The captain didn't succeed in turning Ross over to Paramount right away, though, because the newspaper photographers got him again for further shots with the nurses. After they had taken one or two, Ross protested quiet- ly to the effect that he was a little tired. "See, he's beginning to kick al- ready," said one of the newsreel men nervously. Before submitting to Paramount, Ross had a brief rest, during which he sat in a chair and signed autographs for a couple of Boy Scouts who had ap- peared from nowhere. Then he and Mr. Chester went before the camera, holding between them the citation. Mr. Chester was asked to run throu o-h his b presentation speech once to determine something called his voice level. When that was straightened out, a Paramount man said to Ross, "Do you remember how you did it for us out on the Coast?" " I h . k " R O d " 0 K " . d t In so, oSS sal. .., Sal P ". h aramount, Just t e same now, only 9:; 9; Q -' 1 f .:-': - ,'?-' \)- II i I ó ff} .. > , \... Ii í MARCH 2.0, 19 f:} . · 1 0 1 h "" All 0 h " gIve It a Itt e more punc . rIg t, said Ross. After the presentation had been recorded, on the third try, Nlr. Chester stepped aside and there was a certain amount of preparation for the next shot, a closeup of Ross by himself. The distance from the camera to his head was measured a number of times before head and camera were satisfac- torily located. Then the closeup was taken while Ross spoke extemporaneous- ly in praise of his pals on Guadalcanal. After that his reception was over and he went out by a back exit, followed by the captain and, at some distance, the Boy Scouts. LT pstart S CRIBNER'S rare-book man has just acted as agent in a deal whereby a lady in London sold a batch of original MSS. to a Philadelphia collector. While the dickering was in progress, the lady made it plain that she was selling only in order to raise money for war relief work but that even so she wasn't will- ing to sell to just anybody. Scribner's wrote her at length about the Philadel- phia party, informing her that he was highly regarded in the book world. They added that she needn't worry about the MSS. ever being put on the market again, since the prospective purchaser in tended to will them to the Princeton University library. This raised a fresh doubt in the lady's mind. Would they please, she wrote, tell her something about this Princeton U ni- versity ? For instance, how did it com'- pare with Harvard, Yale, or the U ni- versity of Virginia? Scribner's said the only possible thing and the deal went through. Sartorial Expert J\MERICAN soldiers in Alaska and the .ll. Aleutians are wearing a modifica- tion of the traditional Eskimo parka, for which they are indebted in part to Sir Hubert V\Tilkins, the explorer, who is one of a group of experienced civilians now working with the War Depart- ment on men's wear for the Arctic, desert, and jungle. Sir Hubert, who has been thus engaged since last June, makes his headquarters in the Office of the Quartermaster General in Washing- ton but is a peripatetic consultant. He got back to this region recently after two and a half months in Alaska, where he had been testing special combat clothes, and we had an opportunity to ask about the parka and allied matters. "The idea of a parka is the same as that of a fl ue," he